Between the Noise: Two Days of e-MTB Escape in Morocco’s Imlil and Azzaden Valleys

There are only so many times you can refresh the news before your brain starts to feel like a tumble dryer full of cutlery.

By the time I arrived in Imlil, in Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains, I’d spent seemingly months marinating in that very contemporary stew of anxiety. A very close friend had died. Work had morphed into an endless carousel of restructuring, aimless urgency and amateur politics. Every spare moment seemed occupied by fresh global catastrophes, market panics, culture wars, actual wars, genocides and whatever fresh instalment of Trumpageddon was dominating the algorithmically curated outrage buffet that day.

So when Hussein, a local mountain bike guide in Imlil, pointed at a map, traced two rough loops into the mountains and said, “These valleys. Just go ride,” it felt less like classic route advice and more like a prescription.

The plan was simple: two days, two valleys, one Scott e-MTB, a bag of snacks, water and no schedule beyond daylight.

April is one of those sweet spots in the High Atlas when the mountains haven’t yet committed themselves to summer. The air carries a cool edge in the morning, while afternoons can be surprisingly warm. Snow still clings to higher ridgelines and shaded gullies. Apple and cherry trees blossom in improbable pockets of green. Water runs everywhere.

I rolled out of Imlil shortly after sunrise. The town has become one of Morocco’s adventure gateways, and you can see the changes happening in real time. Satellite dishes perch on traditional homes. Mountain guides coordinate bookings and their multiple guiding lives on smartphones. Donkeys still haul supplies up ancient trails while teenagers scroll TikTok in villages that, not that long ago, felt disconnected from the outside world.

The Scott hummed quietly beneath me as the first climb began. Purists can debate e-bikes all they like imho. Standing astride this one in a cold mountain valley with eight hours of riding ahead and a dodgy night’s sleep, I regarded the motor with the same affection sailors reserve for favourable winds.

The further I rode, the quieter everything became. One of the unexpected pleasures of travelling alone is that conversations stop competing with observation and you notice things you wouldn’t usually. The sound of irrigation channels threading through villages, the smell of wood smoke drifting uphill, the scratching of a Barbary ground squirrel on the scree.

There is a particular solitude available in mountains that isn’t loneliness. In fact, it may be the opposite. For hours at a time, I encountered not a soul. Then suddenly a village would appear around a bend, children shouting greetings and small donkey trains passing. Then that luxurious silence returned. Modern life tends to alternate between overstimulation and isolation but the High Atlas somehow manages to avoid both.

By late afternoon I dropped back towards Imlil beneath lengthening shadows. The day’s riding covered some rough traverses, boulders left from the 2023 earthquake, several steep climbs, loose descents and enough technical trail to keep concentration permanently engaged.

If the Imlil Valley feels just about connected to the outside world, the Azzaden Valley definitely feels one step beyond.

The second morning began with another long climb.The route threaded steadily westwards through increasingly open terrain. Villages became less frequent and the slopes grew steeper but the peaks seemed closer.

April’s light painted the valley across in subtle colours. A sun-baked, earth-toned palette of burnt oranges, terracotta, ochre and pale desert yellows, softened by dust, stone and faded clay. Fresh green vegetation lined watercourses lower down. 

Above roughly 2,000 metres, the landscape shifts again into something more austere but the riding, though, was magnificent. E-bikes often get accused of making mountain adventures easier and, yep, sometimes they do. But what they actually do here is make the mountains bigger. Instead of spending the day doing overly detailed route-planning, calculating energy and expenditure, I found myself exploring side valleys, climbing additional ridges and following intriguing trails simply because they existed. The freedom is addictive.